OECD annual meeting in March to discuss jobs and growth

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) today announced details of the 9th Annual Meeting of the OECD LEED Forum entitled “Implementing change: A new local agenda for jobs and growth”. The event will take place in Dublin and Kilkenny over two days and is part of Ireland’s Presidency of the European Union.

Richard Bruton, TD, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation will open the event along with Yves Leterme, Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD.

Edward Blakely, the “recovery czar” for New Orleans following hurricane Katrina and Honorary Professor of Urban Policy at the University of Sydney, will present on local development in the post-crisis economy.

“This meeting will facilitate unique networking opportunities for organisations and projects, both local and international, to share information on innovative ways to support job creation and economic development”, Minister Phil Hogan TD, Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government said today.

The event includes a number of high level plenaries, parallel workshops to dig deeper into the issues, a local networking session, as well as on-site visits to local innovative projects.

The event takes place at a time of significant policy reform and restructuring in Ireland. It will present an opportunity to learn from the best of contemporary international practice, while also showcasing the best of Irish employment and economic development policy responses. The preliminary findings from a number of on-going LEED projects in Ireland will be debated during the meeting.

“This is a unique opportunity for the OECD to bring international best practice in job creation and local growth policies to Ireland as part of the Irish Presidency, and have a positive impact on Irish policy making”, said Sylvain Giguère, Head of LEED Division, OECD.

Over 200 international representatives will attend. The event will be of interest to government officials at national, regional and local level, local leaders and business representatives, social entrepreneurs, trade unions, local partnerships, and researchers and academics and registration is now open.

Pobal is a not-for-profit company with charitable status that manages programmes on behalf of the Irish Government and the EU. Pobal’s mission is to promote social inclusion, reconciliation and equality through integrated social and economic development within communities.

Since 1982 the OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Programme has advised governments and communities on how to respond to economic change in a fast-changing world. Its mission is to contribute to the creation of more and better quality jobs through more effective policy implementation, innovative practices and integrated strategies at the local level.